Suteneko
by Hollywithaneye
Summary: Set soon after Episode 26...will the cat end up winning the most important battle of all? TxK


  


_Authors Note: This is my first Fruits Basket fic, and I am a huge Kyo/Tohru fan. However, just isn't enough of those around as far as I'm concerned, so here is my own attempt at one! And someone correct me if I am wrong, but I was told that Suteneko was Japanese for a stray or abandoned cat. Rather fitting, eh?_

  


Tohru slowly made her way up the old wooden ladder propped against the eaves with a carefully balanced tray of riceballs in her left hand. Popping her head over the edge of the roof her eyes immediately focused on a bright patch of orange near the peak of the roof and she laughed silently. He was so predictable.

  


"I found you!" she laughed in a sing-song voice, clambering over the edge of the roof and making her way along the slippery tiles towards the reclining Kyo. The slow opening of one crimson eye was the only acknowledgment of her presence that she got. "I brought you a snack."

  


Grunting softly Kyo opened both eyes, unfolding his arms from behind his head and sitting upright. "Don't you have anything better to be doing? You should be asleep." he growled while taking the proffered tray from her hands and laying into the riceballs with a vengeance.

  


"I'm sorry, I was just...well, you didn't come to dinner tonight and I just wanted to make sure you didn't go to sleep hungry." She chirped with a bright smile, finding a seat on the roof ridge next to Kyo and drifting off in thought as he silently devoured the snack. Pulling her knees up to her chest she shivered slightly in her thin summer pajamas. Despite the heat of the daytime it had really turned chilly this evening, and sitting on the cool grey tiles didn't help at all. Kyo's sharp eyes caught her goose bumped arms and he frowned. _Silly idiot..._"Don't you have some warmer clothes?" he mumbled around a mouthful of rice. 

  


"Who me? I'm fine, really! I just wasn't expecting the tiles to be so cold, that's all." she replied with a grin before resuming her silent contemplation. "Bullshit," He muttered under his breath, but decided to let this issue slide for now knowing that he would get nowhere with it. One definitely had to learn to choose his battles where Tohru was concerned.

  


Laying the empty tray on the roof beside him with a mumbled thanks to Tohru, Kyo resumed his prone position and watched the last scraps of sunlight chase beyond the horizon. Neither said a word, it was enough to just enjoy the beauty of sunset. And for Kyo, it was enough to just bask in her presence. These were some of his favorite times, sitting here in silence with her. There was no pressure to make small talk, no worry that she would feel the need to apologize for the umpteenth time, and definitely no chance that he could set off another crying spell. In the silence, like this, he could relax and simply enjoy the peace that being so close to Tohru brought him. He hated to ruin a perfect evening like this but there was a question eating away at him that he'd never get the answer to without asking her.

  


Sighing softly at the beauty of the evening sky, Tohru reluctantly levered herself upright to return to the house. She never could tell if Kyo welcomed her presence or merely tolerated it. Up here on the roof, this was his 'secret base', and the last thing Tohru wanted to do was compromise her welcome in Kyo's intensely private life. It still saddened her to leave though...as far as they had come in their friendship she still felt as if there were a great many things she didn't know about Kyo. And she was beginning to think she might never.

  


"Oy, Tohru..." Kyo grunted while sitting up. Tohru paused halfway between sitting and standing to look at Kyo quizzically. "You don't have to leave so soon. Unless you are tired or something..." Kyo trailed off and averted his eyes, trying to hide the hope deep in their ruby depths. Smiling, Tohru lowered herself to the roof ridge again and looked at Kyo expectantly, understanding that there must be something he wanted to say or ask her.

  


Seconds ticked into minutes as Kyo continued to search the night sky before Tohru gently cleared her throat and smiled again at the red-head. "Is there something you wanted to talk about, Kyo?" she questioned softly.

  


Startled by her insight into his silence, Kyo scrambled for the right words. "No, not really. I mean...I was wondering, sort of..." his voice trailed off again and he turned to face her fully, his red eyes boring intensely into her own. "Where did you go, that...night? I mean, it took you and Yuki awhile to catch up with me...where did you go between the time you saw and when you found me?" He finished and abruptly turned away again, his expression distant. Tohru took one look at that carefully schooled face and knew that this was something very important to Kyo. She could only begin to imagine where his thoughts had run; with his sensitivity to rejection she couldn't see any of those scenarios being particularly pleasant.

  


"Did you think it took me that long to work up the courage to go after you, Kyo?" she asked quietly, hugging her knees to her chest and resting her chin on her kneecaps. She took his silent scowl as a yes. "It didn't, you know. I think I was running before your beads had stopped bouncing. I didn't even hear what Kazuma had said to me." 

  


Kyo's face clouded with confusion. "But then-"

  


"Where did I go?" she interrupted and he nodded. "I met Akito in the forest." she whispered, bowing her head so that her bangs covered her eyes and picking at a bit of moss on the tile next to her. She heard Kyo's sharp intake of breath and was surprised when his hand wrapped itself around her upper arm. "What did he do to you?" Kyo growled, anger instantly radiating off of him like a tangible heat. "No-nothing..." she stuttered, taken aback by Kyo's sudden rage. "He was trying to scare me, I think." she continued and Kyo slowly removed his hand from her arm. 

  


"He wanted to make me upset. I think that he was angry, that I had still insisted in running after you. He had hoped that seeing the cat's mononoke would make me regret getting involved with the Sohma family. He said that I deserved what I was getting." She began scraping again at the moss with one fingernail, avoiding Kyo's eyes and dreading the question he would ask next.

  


What did he mean, deserve what you were getting? I thought you said he didn't do anything to you?!" Kyo yelled, bristling with anger once again. 

  


"No no no no!" Tohru cried, waving her hands in dismay. "He didn't! It's just that when Akito caught up with me, I was...um...I mean, the smell had..." she trailed off lamely, unsure of how to explain what had happened without hurting Kyo's already delicate feelings about the matter. 

  


"Oh." Kyo mumbled and quickly looked away. "I see."

  


"Oh no, Kyo, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I didn't want you to know, I didn't want to make you feel worse about the whole thing." Tohru cried miserably, visibly drooping as she realized she had upset Kyo.

  


"It's ok, Tohru." Kyo ground out, wanting to stem her flood of apologies before it turned into tears. "Really." he finished with a small half-smile.

  


Tohru returned it with a small smile of her own before closing her eyes and tipping her head back. Kyo found himself admiring the smooth white line of her neck in the dim light. "After Shigure chased Akito off and apologized to me, I was pretty dazed. I didn't really know what to do or think. Before I knew where I was even going I found myself face down at Mom's grave. I didn't know how long I had been there, or how I had gotten there. I think I was in shock. Then, suddenly, Uo and Hana showed up. Hana said that she had gotten this overwhelming urge to visit Mother's grave." 

  


Opening her blue eyes, Tohru nestled her chin on her knees once again while Kyo started in surprise. _Hana? Had to visit Tohru's mother? How could she have known? _"I...I didn't know what to do." Tohru whispered, before turning towards Kyo with shame in her eyes. "I am so sorry, Kyo. I didn't know how long I had been there, and...I was so ashamed. What if it had been hours? What if I had left you alone for hours like that, thinking that I was too afraid to come after you? Thinking that I didn't care?" Tears slowly filled her eyes and Kyo made a strangled sound, ready to try and keep those tears from overflowing. Dammit, didn't she realize he couldn't stand it when she cried? Especially not when he was the source of the tears.

  


Quickly Tohru dashed the tears away with both hands. "We both owe a lot to Hana, you know. She was the one who kept Uo from running to me. Somehow Hana knew that if Uo was to comfort me right then, I would have broken down completely and never been able to make it to you. It was Hana who gave me the strength and will to get up. To go after you again. Even if it was too late, I knew that I had to try and reach you. Because I couldn't have borne it...I couldn't have left you like that, not without even trying. But I am still sorry...I should have been there for you." Her voice hitched on the last words in a sob.

  


Kyo just sat in silence, hoping and praying that her sob wouldn't turn into a full-fledged cry. After a moment of sniffling Tohru regained her composure and smiled sunnily at him. "Do you want to know what is really odd?" she asked him. "Did you ever wonder how I found you, with all that forest to search through?"

  


Kyo just shrugged. Truthfully, he had wondered a bit about that. After all, the Sohma property was large and if she had truly ended up at her mother's grave that was a lot of ground to cover. It was almost a miracle that she had found him at all.

  


"Once I had left Mother, I didn't have a clue where I was going. I just had Hana's voice echoing in my head, telling me to stand up, telling me to go to where I was needed. I wound up near the edge of the forest before I realized that I really didn't know where to begin searching for you. That was when he found me." 

  


"Who found you?" Kyo questioned sharply, fearing the answer was going to be that shitty mouse.

"The cat. A cute tabby that looked just like you showed up out of nowhere, rubbing himself against my leg. I was so excited, Kyo! I thought that it was you. But when it looked up and meowed at me, I knew it definitely couldn't have been you." She giggled. "If it had, I don't think anything that came out of it's mouth would have been half as cheerful sounding."

  


Kyo face darkened into his customary scowl. "Quit laughing! I could sound cheerful if I wanted to. I just don't want to." he groused.

  


Tohru just laughed again. "Cheerful or not, I knew it wasn't you. But then he began running through the woods, meowing every so often at me. I couldn't tell you why but I had the strangest idea that just maybe he was trying to get me to follow him. And then, out of nowhere, I suddenly had a veritable furry army for an escort. A sea of cats led me to the edge of the forest by the lake and then stopped to stare at me, almost as if they were expecting something. It was kind of scary, actually...having all those glowing eyes fixated on me at once. I wonder how they knew..." Tohru trailed off thoughtfully.

  


Kyo studiously avoided her gaze How could he tell her that he had sent them? That some tiny part of him had held out the hope that she just might look for him, and he had asked the cats to show her the way? He shifted position on the roof uncomfortably, both angry and relieved when Tohru turned a knowing gaze on him.

  


"Thank you." she whispered softly, and he grunted softly in return.

  


"About that night..." Kyo broke the silence a moment later. "It's...it's harder to control my temper like that. The cat... the cat is an angry spirit. It just seems to make everything worse." He paused a moment and tried to keep his hands from shaking as he forced the words out. "It is not any excuse, but I would never have thrown you aside like I did. Not normally. I thought... I can't stand being pitied. I shouldn't have thought that you were pitying me." His brow darkened in a scowl blacker than any Tohru had seen on him.

  


"It's ok, Kyo. I know you didn't mean it." She met his eyes with hers and shyly placed one hand on top of his. Kyo dropped his gaze to where her hand covered his and blushed slightly before narrowing his eyes and snatching her hand up, pulling it closer to his face. Angrily he turned it over and over, examining the healing scratches covering their smooth surface and swearing silently. She probably had them all over her legs too, the fool! He raised his eyes to her again, opening his mouth to launch a tirade when he saw her pink cheeks and her mouth in a tiny 'o' of surprise. Hastily he dropped her hand and jumped up to stalk along the peak of the roof, bristling with anger. He could feel the cat inside him stirring, awakened by his mounting rage. Hastily he clamped down on the anger, this would not be the time to lose control and shift! He knew he was being irrational, getting so angry over something like this, but he couldn't help feeling responsible for every scratch and cut she carried on her body.

  


"You're an idiot!" he finally spat out, practically hissing in anger. "What kind of a moron takes off through the woods in the night barefoot wearing nothing but a skirt and short sleeves?! What if you ran into some brambles, or stepped on a sharp rock? You really need to think sometimes, Tohru!" She normally would have jumped into a fit of apologies, but the last few days had given her a lot of insight int Kyo and she knew this was simply his way of dealing with the feeling of being responsible for her injury. "Was it so important that you couldn't have taken a moment to at least put on some real shoes?" He finally yelled, exasperation written in every line of his body.

  


Tohru looked up at him from her sitting position, beaming brightly at him. "Yes, it was," she said happily."It was worth it." Kyo felt himself choke on the words he had been about to say and sat down again, somewhat mollified by her remark. 

  


"Still..." he ground out sulkily. "What if you had caught a cold? Think sometimes, Tohru."

  


"I'm sorry to have worried you, Kyo!" she exclaimed before jumping to her feet. "I'll try harder to-" Her sentence was cut short as she felt the tile under left foot begin to slip loose. She barely had enough time to let out a squeak of dismay before she had begun sliding toward the edge of the roof. She caught Kyo's horrified expression and his strangled shout of "Tohru!" as he sprang to his feet lighter than any cat and leapt forward, catching her just under the shoulders and wrapping his arms around her. Her breath left her in a short grunt as she was pulled against his chest and onto her back staring up at the stars. For one brief moment she felt the line of Kyo's body pressed tightly against hers, his arms still wrapped tightly around her midsection and his orange hair tickling her nose. Tohru felt her face redden as his gasps for breath blew warm across her cheek, before the expected 'poof!' left her with one extremely irritated orange cat beneath her back.

  


"I'm sorry, Kyo! I'm really sorry!" she exclaimed loudly while pulling the cat from underneath her and depositing him on her stomach. Kyo winced as the sound assaulted his sensitive ears. "Thank you for catching me."

  


"Stupid girl." He grumped, easily feeling how hard her heart was pounding from his new position. She needed to lie still a moment and calm down. Kyo stretched his ginger form out across her stomach, resting his chin on his forepaws and wrapping his tail around himself before closing his eyes. "Sit still for a minute and calm down."

  


Tohru took a few deep breaths, calmed by the solid furry weight resting on her stomach. Kyo mentally cursed his traitorous body as it began purring, enjoying its close proximity to Tohru, but she didn't seem to take any notice of it. She absently stroked his body from head to tail, enjoying the soft texture of his fur. "Thank you again for catching me, Kyo." she murmured.

  


He raised one eyelid to gaze up at her, his stare lasting long enough to make her uncomfortable before the eyelid dropped into place again. "I would never let you fall, Tohru." floated up to her ears a moment later. 

  


She just smiled happily up at the stars and continued petting Kyo, catching the hidden weight of his comment better than he ever thought she might. Whatever happened, she knew Kyo would _always_ be there to catch her.

_To be continued..._

  
  
  



End file.
